Publisher's Synopsis
Every time he speaks others seem to die. He loves a woman but is terrified of the words he must say. He wants to be with her but is afraid of causing her death. If it were not for her smile he would not have taken the risk. ‘I saw the impact of those words.
'I saw the impact on you as those words travelled from my mouth and floated into your ears. They were words, just words, each individual one so harmless, each individual one like a delicate sigh, like a shallow breath that we once shared. I remember those words, the moment they reached your ears; I saw a look upon your face that I did not ever want to see: I saw a woman devastated by the accumulation of some gentle sighs.’
Haunted by the death of her twin sister, she has known nothing but loneliness. Having watched the world and herself from a distance she is desperate for emotional contact, desperate for intimacy. She wants to be with him but is afraid of being suffocated by the relationship.
‘I heard her. I hear her. At times when I get lonely … I hear her … She reminds me that I took the last drops of blood from her … reminding me that I took the last essence of life from her.
‘Now — When I hold someone, it is as if they are dead… As if there is no one there… just an empty space… it means nothing. It feels like nothing… It feels lonely when I am with someone.’
An innovative fiction that charts the development and destruction of a relationship of an unnamed couple as they explore the complexities of their feelings in a series of revealing, deeply touching and sometimes troubling conversations. It engenders the reader to ‘listen’ in on the characters’ personal and intimate dialogue as they seek to unburden themselves to each other. This tender and moving novel is a detailed exploration of the emotional turmoil that lies behind the words of two people desperate for love but unable to make sense of the situation in which they find themselves.
